Sharks: 273 Million Die/Year

The reputation of sharks has changed over the past 40 years or so from one that is of a vicious killing machine to one that is a victim of misunderstanding.

Much of the earlier reputation has been attributed to that famous set of movies called Jaws. A set of movies about a massive, vengeance seeking great white shark who targets humans for its killing pleasure.

As a young kid watching these movies and I was petrified of sharks for the longest time and I still am. Don’t get me wrong…I have a deep respect for sharks as a species, a predator, and a regulator of other animals in the sea. And many other people do too…

Unfortunately, the numbers don’t match the change in reputation from a vicious human hunter to a fish that just does what it’s suppose to do…eat animals, but not humans.

Researchers have recently estimated the number of sharks that die every year is between 63-273 million….with an average of 100 million sharks.

That’s a boat load of sharks!

Now most of you are probably thinking that the sharks are dying due to shark finning, but the estimates include all sorts of ways sharks die including fishing, bycatch, AND finning.

Regardless, of what is killing them, the fact remains that the change to a more positive reputation of sharks has not affected the number of sharks dying as the death rate of sharks has not changed since 2000.

More information on this article and a great review of this article was written by A Speak Up For Blue Ocean Leader, David Shiffman aka WhySharksMatter, over at SouthernFriedScience.com…The Link to that story is in the description below.

In my opinion, we still need to educate people on the importance of the role of sharks in our Ocean Environment. Technology like social media has really helped Ocean Conservationists get the message out to the public…after all, social media is the reason you are watching this video today.

What do you think we need to do to protect sharks?

Leave your comment below and let yourself be heard on these Ocean issues!